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Averages And Their "worth"


SCB

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So with the biased race format that served a purpose for two years as it protected the reserves so we could almost see past if flaws as it protected young British riders we now have a whole league of riders on messed up, meaningless averages. So what do we do? As I see it we have the following options....

 

1. Ignore it. So what, you win some you lose some. Until the rich clubs sign 7 riders who spent time as a heat leader and the poor club is left with 7 riders who spent most of the season in reserve.

 

2. Grade riders. Well we tried grading heat leaders in 2016 and we all got upset. How do you grade riders? Averages, meetings as heat leader, feeling? Vote on it?

 

3.* Take each riders average as a heat leader, second string and reserve and find a conversion between the 3, then give every rider a weighted average. OK until you realise Wolves come to Coventry this year for a meeting with Joonas, Bech and Howarth as heat leaders while Masters was a reserve and Lindgren a second string. So that day did the Coventry heat leaders have an easier job?

 

4. Something else? Lets hear it!

 

 

*Provided I can be bothered I plan to do this tonight, I'll post the list so you can all see how it effects riders averages.

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Option 3. Not perfect, but by far the best option.

Ally it with a reversion to a conventional heat format and a rule that any redeclaration the team must be declared under the points limit.

Rolling averages to start afresh in 2017.

Any rider not racing uk in 2016 to be given an assessed average at the start of the season based on averages on other major leagues.

Option 3. Not perfect, but by far the best option.

Ally it with a reversion to a conventional heat format and a rule that any redeclaration the team must be declared under the points limit.

Rolling averages to start afresh in 2017.

Any rider not racing uk in 2016 to be given an assessed average at the start of the season based on averages on other major leagues.

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A simpler way would be to leave the averages as they are.

 

Calculate the average team strength over the Elite league from the final averages and either have that as the team points limit or use the value to decide where to put the team points total.

 

Next year the averages will naturally sort themselves out,

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A simpler way would be to leave the averages as they are.

 

Calculate the average team strength over the Elite league from the final averages and either have that as the team points limit or use the value to decide where to put the team points total.

 

Next year the averages will naturally sort themselves out,

It would be simpler but in no way addresses the issue.
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So with the biased race format that served a purpose for two years as it protected the reserves so we could almost see past if flaws as it protected young British riders we now have a whole league of riders on messed up, meaningless averages. So what do we do? As I see it we have the following options....

 

1. Ignore it. So what, you win some you lose some. Until the rich clubs sign 7 riders who spent time as a heat leader and the poor club is left with 7 riders who spent most of the season in reserve.

 

2. Grade riders. Well we tried grading heat leaders in 2016 and we all got upset. How do you grade riders? Averages, meetings as heat leader, feeling? Vote on it?

 

3.* Take each riders average as a heat leader, second string and reserve and find a conversion between the 3, then give every rider a weighted average. OK until you realise Wolves come to Coventry this year for a meeting with Joonas, Bech and Howarth as heat leaders while Masters was a reserve and Lindgren a second string. So that day did the Coventry heat leaders have an easier job?

 

4. Something else? Lets hear it!

 

 

*Provided I can be bothered I plan to do this tonight, I'll post the list so you can all see how it effects riders averages.

Re: 4,

 

Since many (okay, most) riders in the EL also ride (and have a 'true' average) in the PL, maybe it would be an idea to use the PL averages.

For those who don't have a current PL average, which is not many, use the standard conversion rate.

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The problem comes when, for whatever reason, a riders PL average doesn't reflect their EL worth. It's also not beyond the realms of possibility that a rider could be incentivised to keep their PL average down to make them more attractive in the EL.

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I believe now is the time for the Elite league to go for rider gradings for all the riders, and I also believe the league should be run on the Danish league system- tailored to meet GB format requirements.

This is what the Danes do with their 5 man teams

 

All riders are before the season begins assigned a category (A, B, C or D), where A is the absolute top drivers, B-riders are the riders who are just below the absolute elite C-drivers are drivers with a certain experience, while D-drivers are primarily the new Danish talents.

To create exciting race lays down rules for how the team should be composed of the day.

Team's total value must not exceed 24 and must be at least 19
This includes:

A drivers with the value 8

B drivers with the value 6

C drivers with the value 3

D drivers with value 1.

There must be max. one A rider.

There must be max. be three B-riders on the team.

There must be max. be three drivers who are not Danish parent club and Danish license.

The team must consist of at least a D-drivers or alternatively a U21-running Danish parent club and Danish license.

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Along the lines of option 3 for me.

 

20 meeting rolling avearage.

+1% for each of one at HL

= for each at 2nd string

-1% for each at reserve

 

The biggest downside is it could penaluse to very top scorers. Someone on a current 9 fro HL would go to 11.8.

 

If you wanted to alleviate this you could use a gap closure calculation. So the closer a rider is to 12 the smaller their increase would be.

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Along the lines of option 3 for me.

 

20 meeting rolling avearage.

+1% for each of one at HL

= for each at 2nd string

-1% for each at reserve

 

The biggest downside is it could penaluse to very top scorers. Someone on a current 9 fro HL would go to 11.8.

 

If you wanted to alleviate this you could use a gap closure calculation. So the closer a rider is to 12 the smaller their increase would be.

Last year I found that heat leaders scored about 25% less than second strings. No idea what it'll be this year. When I extrapolated it, it still worked quite well.

 

http://www.speedway-forum.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=80571

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The problem comes when, for whatever reason, a riders PL average doesn't reflect their EL worth. It's also not beyond the realms of possibility that a rider could be incentivised to keep their PL average down to make them more attractive in the EL.

No way do we want to use PL averages in team building, that's been abused for far too long ....
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Get five independent people with knowledge of the sport and let them grade riders 1 - 5. Most riders will slip into one of the five grades easily and for any that don't a vote is taken.

 

It would prevent anomolies, eg Woffy being considered a 'lesser rider' that Kylmakorpi and also mean no PL/EL conversion nonsense..

 

Six man teams. (2 fives, and one each from the one to four). Teams could have the option of missing out a 'one to four' level rider and have another from the grade below, eg no grade 1 but two grade 2's etc

 

There are too many variables in how averages are delivered to be regarded as fit for purpose when team building eg large home track advantage, ringer guests racing in meetings diluting averages of the other riders, falls, engine failures, riders missing (miraculously) meetings at tracks they race poorly on so their average doesn't change, riders doing more meetings than others around the globe which must effect performance and the obvious protected heats distorting the riders true capability..

 

Go to grading or have a 'free for all' with no limit to team strengths. No team could afford a team of superstars anyway and even if they could, after four or five weeks of watching home teams hammering the opposition crowds would drop through sheer tedium making them definitely not viable..

 

We on here could plot 90% of the World's riders into five levels with no problem. Leaving the 10% of 'maybe's' to be discussed in more detail..

 

Don't use something that is so open to manipulation that it's incredible to think it is still used...

Edited by mikebv
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Get five independent people with knowledge of the sport and let them grade riders 1 - 5. Most riders will slip into one of the five grades easily and for any that don't a vote is taken.

 

It would prevent anomolies, eg Woffy being considered a 'lesser rider' that Kylmakorpi and also mean no PL/EL conversion nonsense..

 

Six man teams. (2 fives, and one each from the one to four). Teams could have the option of missing out a 'one to four' level rider and have another from the grade below, eg no grade 1 but two grade 2's etc

 

There are too many variables in how averages are delivered to be regarded as fit for purpose when team building eg large home track advantage, ringer guests racing in meetings diluting averages of the other riders, falls, engine failures, riders missing (miraculously) meetings at tracks they race poorly on so their average doesn't change, riders doing more meetings than others around the globe which must effect performance and the obvious protected heats distorting the riders true capability..

 

Go to grading or have a 'free for all' with no limit to team strengths. No team could afford a team of superstars anyway and even if they could, after four or five weeks of watching home teams hammering the opposition crowds would drop through sheer tedium making them definitely not viable..

 

We on here could plot 90% of the World's riders into five levels with no problem. Leaving the 10% of 'maybe's' to be discussed in more detail..

 

Don't use something that is so open to manipulation that it's incredible to think it is still used...

 

 

There is no such thing as five independent people in speedway. The sport is far too insular for that.

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So with the biased race format that served a purpose for two years as it protected the reserves so we could almost see past if flaws as it protected young British riders we now have a whole league of riders on messed up, meaningless averages. So what do we do? As I see it we have the following options....

 

1. Ignore it. So what, you win some you lose some. Until the rich clubs sign 7 riders who spent time as a heat leader and the poor club is left with 7 riders who spent most of the season in reserve.

 

2. Grade riders. Well we tried grading heat leaders in 2016 and we all got upset. How do you grade riders? Averages, meetings as heat leader, feeling? Vote on it?

 

3.* Take each riders average as a heat leader, second string and reserve and find a conversion between the 3, then give every rider a weighted average. OK until you realise Wolves come to Coventry this year for a meeting with Joonas, Bech and Howarth as heat leaders while Masters was a reserve and Lindgren a second string. So that day did the Coventry heat leaders have an easier job?

 

4. Something else? Lets hear it!

 

 

*Provided I can be bothered I plan to do this tonight, I'll post the list so you can all see how it effects riders averages.

 

I think this thread could be a real investigation, into what needs to be done, to bring the averages back to something like believable. Like SCB has pointed out, in their present format the averages are of no importance.

One can only assume that when the new heat format is released it will be something similar to what we use to have with all riders competing against each other. If that is not the case we may as well stop now. What would be the point of implement changes to bring these figures back to a realistic point, if the new format doesn't correct the variable difficulty factor .

If , as we are lead to believe, this new beginning is forth coming, then yes we are in desperate need of some sort of weighting to bring these averages back to the relevance they once were. Of your suggestions, 1 is a big NO NO. 2 and 3 are possibles and a 5 man independent body also sound good. Whatever way is implemented it has to be better than the figures we have at present....

 

I am not a lover of the 20 match rolling average, can see many issues when it doesn't work. Back in the 70's the working out was so straight forward and less complicated and was never a problem. Then all riders would start the season with the average they finished the previous year. That figure was used for the first 6 meetings only, when his old average would then be replace with a new current one. That new average would then be continually calculated counting every meeting of that season. The CMA would only stay current for a period of 12 months, then there was a laid down procedure to make a new assessment once that period has elapsed..

 

Be interesting to read the various views that will come out on this thread....

Edited by GRW123
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Jason Doyle 9.78
Niels K Iversen 9.11
Andreas Jonsson 8.62
Chris Holder 8.44
Tai Woffinden 8.41
Krzysztof Kasprzak 8.00
Matej Zagar 7.52
Fredrik Lindgren 7.43
Kim Nilsson 7.13
Hans Andersen 7.10
Craig Cook 6.94
Danny King 6.81
Chris Harris 6.79
Robert Lambert 6.78
Edward Kennett 6.69
Sam Masters 6.68
Joonas Kylmakorpi 6.55
Jacob Thorssell 6.50
Max Fricke 6.19
Patrick Hougaard 6.17
Krzysztof Buczkowski 6.15
Scott Nicholls 6.14
Richard Lawson 5.91
Nick Morris 5.81
Josh Grajczonek 5.79
Piotr Swiderski 5.70
Szymon Wozniak 5.49
Nicolai Klindt 5.34
Bjarne Pedersen 5.32
Mads Korneliussen 5.25
Troy Batchelor 5.16
Lewis Bridger 5.11
Brady Kurtz 5.10
Steve Worrall 5.10
Jason Garrity 5.09
Rohan Tungate 5.05
Peter Karlsson 4.97
Adam Ellis 4.96
Mikkel B Jensen 4.70
Justin Sedgmen 4.63
Richie Worrall 4.44
Simon Lambert 4.33
Kyle Newman 4.17
Aaron Summers 4.04
Sebastian Ulamek 4.00
Paul Starke 3.93
Josh Auty 3.86
Kyle Howarth 3.84
Charles Wright 3.76
Lewis Rose 3.76
Josh Bates 3.69
Davey Watt 3.62
Kacper Woryna 3.62
Rory Schlein 3.47
Nikolaj Busk-Jakobsen 3.43
Lewis Kerr 3.42
Adam Roynon 3.40
Kai Huckenbeck 3.23
Joe Jacobs 3.03
Max Clegg 3.01
James Sarjeant 2.67
Robert Mear 2.55
Stefan Nielsen 2.48
Carl Wilkinson 2.41
Grzegorz Walasek 2.13
Ashley Morris 1.93


I've assumed that heat leaders averages are right and then weighted second strings a reserves. I calculated the weightings by taking any riders who rode as any two of heat leader, second string and reserve to calculate the ratios. I've kept it simple and weighted it by riding position 1/3/5 vs 2/4 vs 6/7 when in reality riders appear to have averaged a little less at 5 than at 1 and 3 and at 4 compared to 2 and at 7 compared to 6 but I think it's insignificant enough to not matter.

 

I've also used all meeting for this season. I don't care if a rider has done 1 meeting of 30, thats what is counted. It explains why in some ways Rory Schlein is far too low really.

 

 

Stevebrum will also see that weighted, KK is over half a point better thna Freddie, fancy that (we'll gloss over Freddie leading his team to play-off glory in sterling fashion for now)

Edited by SCB
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Excellent work as always. This should be the basis with a 38.5ish limit. Riders who raced less than 10 meetings in 2016 should get an assessed average, or rolling average including 2015 scores.

After two months (min 3 home 3 away meetings) under a conventional format riders get new averages. Team limit for re declarations would go to 42.5 at that point, but any changes must stay under that limit.

All riders outside the EL to be given a published assessed average at the start of the season.

This is the type of system that should have been in place in 2014 when we pointed out what would happen to averages.

Edited by waihekeaces1
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